


the one where summer and wendy fight about self-destruction

by MaryPSue



Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon), Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: Angst, Canon-typical alcohol abuse, Gen, Hospitalization, could be wendy/summer depending on how you read it, in another reality this is a Kewl Indie Comic but i'm a writer not an artist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 22:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17569430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: Summer has a bad night and a worse morning.





	the one where summer and wendy fight about self-destruction

**Author's Note:**

> 2019: the year we all give up and start titling our one-shots like episodes of _Friends_.

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

Summer lies flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

The hospital room is never actually quiet. There’s always something beeping outside the door, always somebody talking or laughing or calling out in the hall, always, always, even when everything else stops, the low constant thrum of machines in motion.

Still, somehow, the empty room is oppressively silent.

_Beep_.

Summer shifts onto her right side, her face to the window, head sinking into the divot in the little flat pillow. The streetlight outside glares directly down into her face through the slats in the curtain. 

_Beep_. 

Summer turns over onto her left side, shifting her hand so that the IV isn’t crushed against the bed. The liquid pulsing into her arm through the huge fucking needle in her hand is cold, and she tugs the thin blanket farther up over her shoulders. It takes three tries. 

_Beep._

She lies still, listening to her own breathing and the call bells outside her room and the whir and occasional clunk of the air conditioning.

_Beep_.

“What the  _hell_ , Summer!”

“Oh. Okay. We’re going with confrontational after all,” Tina says, in that deadpan monotone that makes it impossible to tell whether she’s fucking hilarious or just really, really boring. 

Wendy doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe care. She crosses the hospital room in two steps to glower down at Summer, one hand twitching at her hip where she usually carries that stupid axe. Summer’s head is still spinning too hard for her to give a shit and the IV port in her hand hurts like a mother _fucker_. Wendy can take her self-righteous bullshit right back out to the nurses’ station and let Summer sleep.

“Oh my  _god_ ,” she mutters, throwing up an arm to shade her eyes. “Can you shift, like, three inches to the right? Then you’ll be completely blocking the hall light.”

"You -" Wendy starts, and then spins to put her back to Summer's bed with a sound that Summer would peg somewhere between a huff and a scream.

"Hi, Summer," Tina says, waving from the doorway. "How're you feeling."

"Like shit," Summer says. "What are you two doing here?"

"I think we're making sure you're all right," Tina says.

"Nope. Change of plans," Wendy snaps, the sarcasm in her voice lashing like a whip. "We're gonna kill her."

"Yeah, yeah, love you too," Summer mutters into her pillow, rolling over.

"I  _mean_  it, Summer!" There's a moment of ominous silence before Wendy says, low and deliberate and tight, "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was  _having fun_ , Corduroy. Maybe you've, like, heard of it?"

"Well, I'm sorry my definition of 'fun' doesn't include putting myself and a teenager in the ER!"

"Maybe we can just...talk things over," Tina suggests, quietly, to no one in particular, somewhere under the yelling. "Maybe this is the beginning of a productive dialogue. Getting our feelings out in the open."

"Well,  _I'm_  sorry you're boring!"

"Oh yeah, what, you're gonna insult me and I'm just gonna get distracted and drop it?" Wendy laughs. It's not a happy laugh. "Seriously, are you trying to hurt yourself? Because that's what it's starting to look like!"

"Oh. Yeah. Because axe-throwing is such a safe, normal sport. Because you've never done anything dangerous that could fuck you up if it went wrong. God, you're such a fucking hypocrite! You're all such a bunch of stupid fucking hypocrites!"

Wendy makes this little aborted noise like she was about to yell something back, but stopped herself. "Okay, I've put up with a lot of your crap, but you crossed a line tonight, Summer. Hollyhock had to have her stomach pumped, she still hasn't woken up -"

"Yeah, well, how is it, like, my fault she can't handle her liquor?"

"She's fourteen years old, you -" Wendy cuts herself off with another frustrated shout, and Summer sits bolt upright in bed even though it makes her head spin.

"You what? You  _what_? Come on, Corduroy, screw your Y-7 rating! Bring it on! Call me a bitch like I know you really want to!"

"Why do you always do this? Why do you always have to push people like this?" Wendy tugs at her short red hair, pacing back and forth beside the hospital bed. "The messed up thing is that I actually like myself when I'm not around you. But you - you just - argh!"

"I what? Bring out the worst in you? Ever consider that, like, maybe you don't need any help with that?"

Wendy is dangerously silent and still for a moment.

Then she kicks the base of Summer's IV stand so hard it topples to the floor and starts to let out a godawful earsplitting beep, and storms out of the room.

"Wow," Tina observes, monotone, over the beeping. "You really pissed her off."

"Yeah, so?" Summer snaps, turning over on her side so she doesn't have to look at Tina's stupid face. "Aren't you gonna, like, go running after her like the useless hanger-on you are?"

"Okay, that was hurtful," Tina says, still in that monotone almost-whisper. Summer throws a pillow at her. Or, at least, in her general direction. She doesn't look to see if her projectile found its mark. "Wendy has a point. You're always trying to push people. Do you think, if you hurt them first and worst, that they can't hurt you? Or are you just trying to show them how bad you really are so they'll leave before you get too attached, instead of after it's too late?"

"You've been reading too much fanfiction, Belcher," Summer groans. "Stop trying to psychoanalyse me, okay? I  _love_  people. All I want in the world is to be fun and popular and have lots of friends, obviously. Wendy's just being a megabitch, and I'm so super sick of it."

"If you say so," Tina says. "So then obviously you'd want me to stay."

Summer groans and reaches out for her pillow to bury her face in, remembering too late that she'd thrown it at Tina. The IV port in her hand is throbbing, now, and her arm is really tangled up in the cord hooked on the fallen IV stand.

"Tina," she's finally forced to admit, "I need your help."

"Oh," Tina says. Her eyes dart from right to left, hands coming up to clutch each other in front of her chest, like an old lady with a purse or a velociraptor. Compysag-whatever. Dinosaur. "I...didn't actually think I'd get this far."

"Oh my  _god_. Not with my, like, personality or whatever! Come help me untangle this IV!"

...

The hospital keeps her until ten o'clock, and then kicks her out.

Wendy’s waiting in the waiting room, leaning against the wall. She kicks herself up and falls into step beside Summer as Summer passes by on her way to the door. They don’t look at each other. Wendy doesn’t say anything, and Summer doesn’t either.

The first time either of them says anything is when they pile into Wendy’s terrible old beater and Wendy cranks the radio. It’s the most stupidly passive-aggressive move, and Summer has to roll her eyes. “Oh my god. Whatever it is, just spit it out.”

Wendy lets out a long, too-loud breath. 

“I can’t keep this up,” she says. “You have to get your drinking under control, or I’m out.”

Summer stares out the window. They haven’t started moving yet, so she’s just looking at a bunch of parked cars like a dumbass.

“Fine,” she says. “Whatever. Is that it? Can we go?”

“Summer, I’m serious,” Wendy says. “You need to - talk to somebody, or, or  _something._ I can’t keep catching you when you obviously just want to crash and burn.”

“ _God_ , you’re no fun anymore,” Summer sighs, flopping her head against the window. “Who said I wanted you to catch me?”

“Nobody,” Wendy mutters. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you just want to drag me down with you.”

Summer sucks in an angry breath through her nose, holds it.

“Fine,” she says, and slams the car door open. “You know what, I’ll just take the bus.”

She doesn’t look back as she storms between the rows of cars, but she hears Wendy’s engine rattle to life. A few seconds later, the red rustbucket rumbles past her, heading for the parkade exit. 

It doesn’t stop as it passes Summer. It doesn’t even slow down.


End file.
